Business Consulting

Business Consulting

Building Strategic Relationships

One of Laura’s specialties is business consulting with owners and sales professionals on how to build strategic relationships in order to receive more referrals. Since 2004, she has worked with thousands of people and has refined her 10 step proven and effective business consulting system to building professional and long-lasting relationships in a fun way that result in referrals and making more money. She is the author of The Blue Circles®, a methodology designed to dramatically increase the likelihood of referral success. In her book, she discusses how to receive Referrals by Design…Not by Chance® and provides the formula for building one’s Blue Circles.

The Blue Circles ® 10 Step System

Learn the four DISC behavioral styles and know your own behavioral style.

Determine your initial product or service offering.

Commit to paper the ten-characteristic profile of your ideal client.

Build a circle of referral partners.

Evaluate each relationship in your Blue Circles.

Create an action plan for deepening these relationships.

Move relationships from likable to credible to referable.

Develop and implement your action plan.

Create a PowerPoint training presentation and share it with your Blue Circles.

Create your own Blue Circles mastermind group for referrals and accountability.

Referrals by Design…Not by Chance®

Referrals come in two flavors: referrals by chance and referrals by design.

Most referrals are “referrals by chance.”

When someone asks for a recommendation on a good attorney, a good insurance agent or a good financial planner and another person knows of someone who would be a good fit or perhaps has a business card from a networking event, that referral is a chance request that might lead to a chance referral.

“Referrals by design” are an entirely different matter.

A referral by design means going out of one’s way to introduce someone to a potential Blue Circle or potential client. This is a proactive, ongoing marketing campaign designed to get people who have a strong relationship to actively refer business back and forth, either by introductions to strategic partners or potential clients.

The Relationship Building Formula

L2 + C2 = R2®

Laura’s LCR2 formula helps people understand how to build their Blue Circles. The goal is to create relationships that are mutually beneficial. The key word is “mutual.” Two people must mutually like each other and mutually find each other credible. Many people try to jump from the “Likeable” stage to “Referable,” which does not work. The most critical stage is “Credible.” Each person must know that the other person does a good job. That is when the “Referable” enters. Those two people are now strategic Blue Circle partners who refer each other back and forth and continue to do so.